Quiet players

Well to play devil's advocate, you're asking for something that doesn't even exist.

Depends on the teenager, dude.

Like how it has always been.

>teenagers don't exist

wut

I think he's talking about a "straight answer" since half of kids these days are peer pressured into becoming gay.

I'm assuming he means that most teenagers don't have a real opinion on most things since that haven't interacted with the world enough.

You do know that "Millenial" describes people that were in their teens around the year 2000? I.E., probably 90% of the population of Veeky Forums?

This. In the end, the GM needs to provide opportunity for everyone to participate. Beyond that, it's your own damn responsibility to play. Complaining about somebody hogging the spotlight is retarded, unless the GM specifically favors someone.

Millennials means everyone born during/after the year 2000.

> a real opinion

wut

"Demographers and researchers typically use the early 1980s as starting birth years and use the mid-1990s to the early 2000s as final birth years for the Millennial Generation."

I've been DMing for a few years now and been a player for several more and ran into this problem alot as well. I couldnt figure out why people wouldn't want to take the reigns and do something with their characters, it would frustrate me alot and made me feel like I was a bad DM or that that were not enjoying the game. That, however, is not the case. Some people like to sit bad and watch the story unfold, fight when they need to and go back to quietly observing in the background. Let them be them bro. A guy on YouTube has a series about this you should check it out:

youtu.be/LQsJSqn71Fw

Tldr; some people like to be quiet and chill

hahaha get rekt

Well, have you tried to get a answer out of a 23-year old girl?
youtu.be/V09jzRKfDvA

Yeah. You just ask people questions they might know the answer to.

You know, like how human conversation works?

>family guy
Have you ever thought maybe you're just so much of a asshole that people don't want to talk to you?

> some people like to be quiet and chill

This.

They don't HAVE an opinion in the first place.

They're not saying "I dunno" to avoid the question, they're telling you the truth.

this

Some people just don't give a fuck about certain topics, or don't have knowldege of it.

What are you even talking about?

>People who say "I don't know" don't know

Yeah no shit

>What are you even talking about?

Read the post I was responding to originally
>Have you tried to get a straight answer out of a teenager these days? It's like they're hard wired NOT to give an opinion.

Now, combine this new information to my reply to that post
>Well to play devil's advocate, you're asking for [an opinion] that doesn't even exist.

How the fuck can I tell what is your post or not?

Why the fuck are you having people go back to read other posts instead of just saying what you mean?

>How the fuck can I tell what is your post or not?
Because all of this started because you got confused over my initial post, and we've been replying to each other trying to sort this shit out

>Why the fuck are you having people go back to read other posts instead of just saying what you mean?
Because I did say what I meant but you got confused because you have already forgotten the goddamn context.

Do you have issues with short term memory user?

In my experience these people don't really want to play in the first place.

>However the two other members of the group stayed off to the side. Even when I deliberately took myself out of the action or hinted that they would probably be better in such a situation. At most they would roll a dice or two and say "i do that".

These people are not into role-playing. They're just there to hang out, and it's the worst possible activity for it. Just play some boardgames with them.

Bascally: Keep playing. Give them chance as you have already. Just don't force them. They enjoy the game in different way than you do.

It is good idea to be considerate by giving them the opportunity to try out the actual role playing if they some day want to actually try it out. I can say from my personal experience that people bring their personal lives into the game with them. Therefore people are not always up to the task of method acting or taking the more active part in the game but they wouldn't be there playing if they didn't enjoy it. Let them enjoy it as they do, give them a chance to roleplay if the want to take it but othewise. Let them be.

This

I honestly think that this is not the best way to go about it.

Some people are just not into role-playing, and it's not really fair against the people who do, to include people who are not really participating beyond rolling some dice.

Not everyone is into role-playing and treat it like some board game where you roll dice and beat the boss, but those people would have more fun if they actually played boardgames instead.

No ones experience is improved by having a couple of spectators there who don't open up or engage except in the most shallow way, unless everyone at the table is like that. And if that's the case, you should just play Arcadia Quest or some other fun boardgame that revolves around the stuff you do in rpgs without actually role-playing.

I have DM'd for groups where the people who were just there to spectate actually made the experience a lot worse for the rest of the group. Role-playing in front of someone who doesn't like role-playing just makes the people who contribute feel put on the spot or like they're stealing the spotlight, and lets be honest here, unless you live in alaska there are way better uses for those 2 seats than just having Mute 1 and Mute 2 hogging them.

Where's your fucking source you fucking nigger?

You are disagreeing with a post suggesting that they keep playing and give them a chance.

It is true that some players are wallflowers that being the group down.
But some players are just quietly doing their thing and not bothering the group.

You are applying a specific situation to a broader issue.
Sometimes, you are right and the seatfillers should find something better to do.
But sometimes wallflowers blossom into roleplayers.
The answer is: keep playing and give them a chance.

And as always, adult communication always helps.

Millenials are the people who had their teenage years or a significant part of their childhood around the end of the millennium.

Don't lash out just because you don't know common shit.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials

Studies and publication links can be found under "References"

I based my answer on the fact that OP seems to have given the quiet players every opportunity to take the spotlight and even suggested directly that they do so in appropriate situations.

Unless someone has some kind of condition or is a shy 11 year old it's not fair to expect the rest of the group to just drag them along just in case they ever decide to contribute.

If you have 4 friends that you go to the park and play frisbee with, but 2 of those friends never do anything but sit on the grass and watch, the normal reaction is to either decide on something else to do that everyone enjoys, or to play frisbee when those 2 friends aren't around.

Ok so let's ignore that I feel your argument revolves around me assuming you were the same user the entire time.

My whole problem was with the statement "a real opinion"

Oh wait, you thought it was a logical assumption that the user responding to Was the user clarifying their statement?

> the normal reaction is to either decide on something else to do that everyone enjoys

Are you saying that it is impossible for people to enjoy sitting on the grass and watching their friends play frisbee?

No, of course not, but in this instance we're talking about role-playing and their non-participation has a lot more impact on the experience of the rest of the group than just feeling a bit weirded out by the people who just like to watch them exert themselves.

You're basically turning 2 characters in the party into boring statblocks that don't have any dialogue, that's pretty bad, and if everyone was okay with it OP wouldn't be asking us for help to begin with.

Pretend they're not playing frisbee if you have problems about taking analogies too literally, pretend they're building a barn, and there are 2 people who took up seats in the car without actually planning on giving anyone a hand.

>its a pretty skeleton system
I wish I had a pretty skeleton system.

I am a terminally quiet player, so maybe this discussion concerns me.
Most of the time it's one of the following:

A: I genuinely have no opinion on the present topic and feel my character would have no opinion either, at least none that can be expressed without being very rude or breaking the fourth wall. This happens when PC-to-PC drama goes on way too long and I just want to advance the plot, but my character is powerless to do so.

B: I could say something, but another player has already said the same thing faster, so I'm stuck just saying I agree.
This is a problem I have in real life, always taking a long time to choose my exact words because people tend to get angry when I don't.
For example, when people want me to hand them an object, they sometimes say "[name], [object]" instead of the full "[name], could you hand me [object] please?" and I'm supposed to parse those two sentences as the same, but when I say "[name], [object]" in the exact same tone they react like I actually said "go fuck your father and kill yourself you whore" and I don't understand why. So I try not to speak spontaneously.

C: Same as B, except I have some idea what *I* would say, but doubt my exact words reflect all of my character's personality traits. I have to go down the list of traits asking myself whether I'm conveying a consistent personality, and by the time I'm satisfied with a complete sentence, ten minutes have passed. I seem to be neurologically incapable of simulating a personality other than my own in real time.

But I love tabletop RPGs for various reasons, and this past half a year I've been afraid to play them, due to consistently failing to choose the exact words my character would say to the point of being kicked out of my last group, it's been a very lonely time.

>Was the user clarifying their statement?
Yes

Well for starters you should tell what size your group is.

A party of more than 4 players invites screen time trouble. More than 5 and you're begging for it.

They might just think you're lame and your game is gay dude

I don't see much of a problem with it. Sometimes you hang out with people who don't talk much, sometimes you work with people who don't talk much, so I can see members of an adventuring party not talking much.

>"[name], [object]" instead of the full "[name], could you hand me [object] please?" and I'm supposed to parse those two sentences as the same, but when I say "[name], [object]" in the exact same tone they react like I actually said "go fuck your father and kill yourself you whore" and I don't understand why.
It's because "[name], [object]" is more towards the "giving orders" end of the spectrum, while the other is the "asking nicely" side. People also tend to forget the golden rule and get pissy if you treat them like they treat you.

Yes, but role-playing is not "hanging out" it's an activity that takes a lot of hassle, time and setup compared to say, playing risk or watching a movie together, and it's just very alien to me why someone who doesn't like talking would want to be included in an activity performed more or less entirely by talking.

>youtu.be/LQsJSqn71Fw

This guy is a little too forgiving in my opinion. Half of the types he mention are the types I try to remove from any group pool before the game even starts. Especially the murderhobo player. Where he goes as far as blaming himself for that atrocious accident, regardless of the fact that he says in the beginning to "give yourself permission to acknowledge that sometimes its not you at fault", and says that the situation was entirely avoidable despite it not really being all that avoidable other than shafting the player who wanted to get information out of the hostage that the murderhobo killed for no reason.

Other than that, charming guy. Can see why he's popular.

Honestly, if someone said that they just wanted to watch everyone else role-play and occasionally roll some dice or give yes-or no answer, my first reaction would be to ask myself why I would ever want to give that player a spot in the group, you know?

It's not really about him enjoying himself, it's about how much he's going to contribute to the rest of the groups enjoyment. Everyone's different, but that person is not making things fun for the others, if anything they might make the others feel a little awkward, or, to be cruel, basically be a wasted opportunity when someone who would have interacted more could have had their seat.

It's like starting a band with someone who doesn't want to play or sing.

> it's an activity that takes a lot of hassle, time and setup compared to say

Depends on the system, DM, players, etc.

When my group meets up its pretty much hanging out. Sometimes people are real quiet sometimes they are active.

You shouldn't force people to play how you think they should play.

But they want to play, they just want to play bass.

The average teenager just wants to fit in, and not trying and make any shoe of difference from herd behaviours unless they're "rebelling" for the sake of trying to stand out of the herd more than others.

But "asking nicely" is functionally an order with more words. It's not a question. They're not asking whether I *could* theoretically do a thing, they want me to do it.
Anyway this isn't about the example I gave. How can I get better at simulating a character's personality when I lack intuition of how personality traits affect exact words?
I guess I could read more, but then that would just make my original characters cheap imitations of existing characters, and my understanding of how they speak would be limited to drawing parallels from the situations in the stories I used for inspiration.

That's exactly my opinion on the subject as well. TRPGs are a hotpot. You only get out of it what you put into it, and if someone is eating out of the pot without putting anything in, then that's not fair for me or the rest of the players at the table, especially when I have to adjust my balance of combat for 5-6 people, but then adjust the roleplay and exploration for 1-2 people.

And yes, I have been on the receiving end of those numbers, where I had about 6 people, but only 1 of them would really engage with the setting at a time and the rest would do exactly what OP says, which is to just sit there, shrug their shoulders, and say "I dunno".

OP, you're not going to cure these people. Just politely remove them from the table and find people who WANT to be there and will contribute.

>why I would ever want to give that player a spot in the group, you know?

Wow, I find it surprising that you need to be so selective with the people you allow in the group. I just make sure people aren't assholes, aside from that they can do w/e.

>they might make the others feel a little awkward

If socially awkward nerds feel awkward around someone who is socially awkward I just don't even know what is reality anymore.

>TRPGs are a hotpot. You only get out of it what you put into it, and if someone is eating out of the pot without putting anything in, then that's not fair for me or the rest of the players at the table

This is the worst analogy for playing a rpg that I have ever heard. It's telling a story. Not every character in the story is super talkative.

Fuck some of my favorite stories had random characters who did nothing except when other characters said "Yo, can you do this thing?"

Millennials aren't teenagers

>I find it surprising that you need to be so selective with the people you allow in the group

As a player, I'm just going to tell you right now, fuck you. I hate DMs like you who just welcome anyone in the group with no regard for how we the players feel. I'm sick of having to put up with you letting Jim fuck around and kill random NPCs, or not doing anything when Sarah just sits there and fucks up half of the combats and plans we make.

And a double-fuck you to you. It's telling a story? Bitch-nigga, THE PLAYERS ARE HALF OF THE STORY! You really think that the game is going to ride itself purely on 2 people at the table, especially whenever we try to include the quiet ones, they just shrug awkwardly? You're a retard.

It seems like they're comfortable enough with not being the center of attention, so no harm in taking a little more of the spot light for yourself. You seem like a goodfa/tg/guy anyway so I'm sure you'll be responsible about it.

Why wouldn't I be selective? It's an activity where you only get as much out of it as the group puts into it, and if someone just isn't putting anything into it then someone who'd contribute more is clearly a better option for me and the group.

We're not 12 any more, we're not forced to hang out with that kid who's never any fun or who's obnoxious just because he lives next door or sits next to us in math.

Role-playing is not the same as just having pizza and watching a movie, you have to actively keep it going, and if 2 people at the table don't contribute to that in any meaningful way I'd argue that they are basically leeching off the effort of the others, and that's just not fair to them.

If a players character and entire contribution to the story basically amounts to that of a quiet NPC they probably aren't enjoying the game as anything other than a chance to hang out, and you can hang out and do other stuff where they can actually participate to a meaningful degree.

>I'm sick of having to put up with you letting Jim fuck around and kill random NPCs

Um, could you try again without resorting to a strawman?

>You really think that the game is going to ride itself purely on 2 people at the table

Yes. Because I've seen it. Obviously the other two characters are more of the mercenary mindset and want to get the job done and would rather take orders.

>You're a retard.

/v/ plz leave

>You really think that the game is going to ride itself purely on 2 people

Most stories manage it with only one.

It's not fair to the loud players that they get to be the center of attention and have the plot focus on them?

> that kid who's never any fun
> silent at the table
> that kid who's never any fun

wut

> if 2 people at the table don't contribute to that in any meaningful way
> don't contribute to that in any meaningful way
> in any meaningful way
> meaningful
> opinions

> I'd argue that they are basically leeching off the effort of the others

And you'd be wrong.

> they probably aren't enjoying the game as anything other than a chance to hang out

...so? They are participating as they want to so what's the problem?

SAVAGE

>It's not fair that some players actually make an effort when I don't!

Are you a Blobfish?

>...so? They are participating as they want to so what's the problem?

The problem is that it's a group activity, and they're not participating as THE REST OF THE GROUP wants them to participate. How is this difficult to grasp?

I'd prefer Hearts and Brains, as a zombie system.

No, that's perfectly fair. I just don't see how someone being content with playing a side character negatively impacts you.

Do you know what a millennial is?

Millennials are the generation that experienced the turn of the millennium

Generally accepted as born between early 80s to 95

Oooooh, so it's literally "they aren't having fun as we want them to have fun"

Ok well at least you're honest. A little shitty in my opinion but you can run whatever game you want.

There's playing a side character and then there's being a lump on a log that doesn't seem to even exist unless there's a fight going on or someone needs something from them.

Not that guy, but personally I feel the exact opposite. It's nice to have someone in the group who can contribute mechanically but play second fiddle in group dynamics. Gives me more space to shine, and people willing to play anything but the main character in a story are so rare.

Even then, how does that hurt you? If you're another player, you have a batman. If you're a GM you have less work to do and can focus on the players that are more active.

They're not somehow leeching fun from the rest of you because they just enjoy killing monsters and hanging out with their friends.

Because only barely participating is a big sign that something is wrong. The GM is wondering if their game is boring, the players are wondering if they're upsetting the poor sap, it just puts a silent dampener on the entire thing.

>Do you want to do this?
I dunno lol
>Well what do you do?
I dunno lol
>It's your turn and the Orc left himself open for a AoO. What do you do?
I dunno lol

>only barely participating is a big sign that something is wrong

No it's not

>The GM is wondering if their game is boring

Sounds like an insecure GM

> the players are wondering if they're upsetting the poor sap

Sounds like the players are insecure

>No it's not
Yes it is. Players who participate at the level that OP is describing are so fucking out of it that it makes you wonder if they're even paying attention to the game in the first place.

PCs do things when things need to be done. They don't wait until someone gives them a swift kick in the ass.

It isn't even being a side character, it's being a piece of background scenery.

>Sounds like an insecure GM
Being mindful of the players and how engaged they are is not being insecure. Just like how ignoring the players and how bored they are isn't confidence.

*checks phone during session*

>hey, uh, i should go...

>Do you want to do this?
If the GM actually asks me, that's easy to answer.
>Well what do you do?
If the GM actually asks me, that's easy to answer.
>It's your turn and the Orc left himself open for a AoO. What do you do?
If the GM actually asks me, that's easy to answer.
>user, you haven't spoken in-character in a while. Shouldn't your character say something?
>Oh, well [other PC] already said what I was thinking of saying two minutes ago, so it would be weird to just repeat that, and the conversation has moved on anyway. It's no big deal, I'm paying attention, I'm just slow.
>Unacceptable! Get out!

I'm sorry but on your level of autism you can't actually eloquize your thoughts so instead substitute all those mspaint comic worthy arguments with *autismal mumbling*

So you don't have any original thoughts whatsoever and you're so predictable and slow that every single word you're ever going to say will be said conveniently right before you talk?
Just fucking talk dude.

Why are you not coming up with what to do yourself?

>makes you wonder if they're even paying attention to the game
>Being mindful of the players and how engaged they are

If you are unsure if they are paying attention or are engaged then just ask them.

>PCs do things when things need to be done. They don't wait until someone gives them a swift kick in the ass.
>opinions

PCs are characters. They act like characters.

I got a friend who is shades of this, he thinks I'm an asshole because I grab the reigns of the story and deliberately drag the party into my characters insane schemes while he is content to wallow around and be a big idiot minion all the time.

He's not horrible but sometimes it feels like he literally brings nothing to the table but damage die in battle, in truth he has a lot of ideas that he than expresses post game and its like 'j-just fucking do the thing in the game you idiot fuck, just DO the THING'

Its like, he expects the GM to have a hundred percent control of the story and he's some passive observer, but thats not how TTRPGs work, the GM sets the rails and you move down them at your own pace and choose what sites you see along the way.

...the user said that if the GM asks him stuff then he will respond...

>Oh, well [other PC] already said what I was thinking of saying two minutes ago

Perhaps in this situation saying something along the lines of that you had a similar thought and agree with the idea/concept/whatever.

Particularly if it's a plan, just the simple words. "Yeah, that sounds good. I agree" or words to that effect is a pretty valid thing to say.

>I can't comprehend your argument
>instead of asking or probing to understand I'm going to call you autistic

/v/ plz leave

If I try to "just talk", I'll be talking as myself, not as my character.

wut

Sounds like he lacks confidence, doesn't know how to communicate, or got taught how to play extremely wrong.

I'd comprehend it if you'd stop dicking around on your phone during the session and fuck off, why do you even come here if you're just going to mumble out some attacks once in a while and huff dick the rest of the time

>Particularly if it's a plan, just the simple words. "Yeah, that sounds good. I agree" or words to that effect is a pretty valid thing to say.
Is it still valid if you keep saying it multiple times a session, and it's 3/4 your in-character speech?